A cake for ARF/5-A-Day Tuesday

Lemon-Blueberry Bundt Cake
Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2006 Copyright 2005

Cake:
Cooking spray
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ¾ cups granulated sugar
¼ cup butter, softened
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
4 large eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (16-ounce) container reduced-fat sour cream
2 cups fresh blueberries

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. To prepare cake, coat a 12-cup Bundt pan with cooking spray; dust with 2 tablespoons granulated sugar. Set aside.
3. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, stirring with a whisk.
4. Place 1 ¾ cups granulated sugar. butter and rind in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 2 minutes). Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition (about 4 minutes total). Beat in vanilla and sour cream. Add flour mixture; beat at medium speed until just combined. Gently fold in blueberries. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.
5. To prepare glaze, combine powdered sugar and lemon juice, stirring well with a whisk. Drizzle over cooled cake.

Yield: 16 servings. Per serving: 299 cal, 7.8 g fat, 5 g pro, 53.2 g carbs, 1.1 g fiber, 71 mg chol, 1.5 mg iron, 172 mg sodium, 68 mg calcium
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I saw a gorgeous blueberry bundt cake on a magazine cover recently. I resisted buying the magazine for that recipe but when I came across this recipe in my new Cooking Light annual, I knew I had to make it. I thought I had everything I needed except the lemons, which I picked up, but here's a good lesson for you - always check your containers! I thought I had an untouched container of light sour cream but when I got to the point in the recipe where I needed to add the sour cream, I only had half of a container. Although I could have added yogurt, I chose to send my husband to the store instead. Disaster averted.

I loved the texture of this cake. It was so smooth and moist. Personally, I could tell this was a lightened up cake, but that isn't a bad thing. It just wasn't as sweet as a 'regular' cake - that's really a very good thing. The blueberries were really sweet and flavorful and honestly they weren't that great before they were baked into the cake. I tried eating them with yogurt for breakfast and they were way too tart. I haven't tasted really good fresh blueberries in years. I know they're out there somewhere but they're not ending up in my produce bin. I still have another container of blueberries I need to find a use for.

Why oh why can't I conquer the art of glazing? My glazes are either too thick or too thin. I thought this runny glaze did a good job of flavoring the cake but just once I would like to have a picture perfect glaze on a cake (where the glaze miraculously stops running well before it hits the plate). My glazing gene must have been left behind with the pie crust gene.

After I made this I realized this would be perfect for Sweetnick's ARF/5-A-Day Tuesdays. Blueberries are definitely making a name for themselves, nutritionally speaking. They're loaded with antioxidants and studies have shown them to help vision and memory, lower cholesterol, protect the brain after a stroke, protect against colon cancer and too many other great things to mention here (read the link!).

Question of the Day: Have you had any good blueberries lately? What did you do with them?